Watch us on “Things that Matter” for a discussion on how to confront the anti-LGBTQ+ agenda of white Christian nationalists in the time leading up to the next election.

Climate change is likely the most pressing issue of our time and religion is not silent on the issue! Join scholars Matthew Fox and Thomas G. Hermans-Webster for this month’s “Things that Matter” discussion on eco-spirituality

Climate change is likely the most pressing issue of our time and religion is not silent on the issue! Join scholars Matthew Fox and Thomas G. Hermans-Webster for this month’s “Things that Matter” discussion on eco-spirituality

Dr. Sharon Jacob will facilitate a conversation on White Christian Nationalism with scholars Dr. Greg Carey and Dr. Traci West

Recorded live on Wednesday, August 10, 2022, at 2:00 EST, we concluded our 3-Part Series of “The Spirituality of Reproductive Freedom.” 

Part 2 looks at “The Spirituality of Reproductive Freedom” with special guests The Rev Dr. Jacqui Lewis and Diana Butler Bass!

Part 1 looks at “The Spirituality of Reproductive Freedom” with special guests The Rev Dr. Jacqui Lewis and Dr. Sharon Jacob!

Bishop John Shelby Spong said, “If God is the source of life, I worship God by living. If God is the source of love, I worship God by loving.

Sugar Maples remind us to tap into our core in transitional seasons when life itself sometimes hangs in the balance, tossed to-and-fro between the fluctuating extremes of faith and doubt, sickness and health, or fear and courage. Crises tend to dim and blind our exterior self as we awaken to and free fall toward our inner self, and with it the few things that matter.

Belief is giving of one’s mind, faith is giving of one’s heart – this is focusing on the smallness of God. Like I said, maybe God is too big sometimes. If so, then start practicing the smallness by the giving of your heart – to yourself, to a loved one, a stranger, and the one unrepeatable moment just barely in the peripheral vision of your world.

I see prayer as intentionally engaging our conscious mind with our highest values. In prayer, I’m reminded of the things that matter most–not only for myself, but for others. By aspiring to focus my mind and heart on these things, I become more open to the possibilities I can wisely (hopefully) choose to make life more meaningful, purposeful, or beautiful.

If “touches” are the many thousands whom your church touches in any way, “prospects” are touches whom you stimulate to take some interest in who you are as a faith community and what you do, especially in mission and ministering to people. Take it as a given that, at this point, they aren’t the least interested in how you worship, the traditions you observe, who presides at your altar, the quality of your facilities, or your history. If that’s all you have to tell them, you are lost.

Dogma and doctrine should not get in the way of practicing Love, who is God. Doctrines can be interesting: they help us understand the origins and background of our religion. But repeating creeds is not the price of admission into Christianity. Instead of caring whether the story of Jesus’ resurrection was a fact or a myth, let’s look in the story for inspiration to turn from the way of death to the way of life. Let’s care about our neighbors without jobs or health insurance, face the resentment in our hearts that needs to be released, become activist citizens, and learn to bring our careers in alignment with our highest values. Let’s gather in churches, soup kitchens, work-places, living rooms, and cafés to support each other in doing things that matter, and let go of old doctrines that don’t.

What’s a promise worth, any more? Surely one of the most peculiar phenomena in America’s peculiar politics has been Grover Nordquist’s no-tax-increase pledge. It was signed solemnly by countless Republican politicians over the last couple of decades. …

We recognize the depth of love, the grace that held us from our birth, but all too soon we lose our grasp and other things have greater worth.

Rev. Jim Burklo is the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California. An ordained United Church of Christ pastor, he is the author of books on progressive Christianity: OPEN CHRISTIANITY: Home by Another Road and BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS: Meditations, Prayers, and Songs for Progressive Christians. His latest book, HITCH-HIKING TO ALASKA: The Way of Soulful Service, will be published late in 2012. You can read his weekly blog, “Musings”, at www.tcpc.blogs.com/musings , and his personal website is www.jimburklo.com .

Consider what it means to be rich towards God during a recession. What does it mean to live with abundance when so many people are feeling anxious and fearful about the future?

My central claim, both today and tomorrow, is that being a Christian is primarily about a relationship with God lived within the Christian tradition as a sacrament – a claim to which I will return at the end of this talk.